Foreclosure Update in Miami Dade and Broward County

Most of us have heard a lot about foreclosures in the news recently. An article in the Miami Herald today told us just how bad it has gotten recently. Below are some of the highlights from the article.

In Miami-Dade County, 20,475 foreclosures have been filed -- roughly one of every 32 homes. That's up from 9,814 foreclosures filed in all of 2006, according to court data. In Broward County, 20,812 foreclosures have been filed -- that's about one of every 30 homes.

Aside from mortgage fraud, adjustable-rate loans are the single largest culprit of what is happening here because interest rates really haven't gone up. For the state, new foreclosures filed in the three months ending Sept. 30 for all types of mortgages rose 49 percent from the previous three months to 1.09 percent, up from .73 percent of all outstanding loans, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's quarterly delinquency survey. Florida ranked fourth in the country in the number of new foreclosures filed according to that same survey.

The percentage of homeowners headed toward foreclosure because they're behind on their payments was 6.47 percent, higher than the national average of 5.81 percent. With all this bad news, what are some of the positives? The first thing is that Congress is working on a plan to freeze certain types of adjustable rate mortgages for the next five years. The plan is somewhat complex, and I am not going to go into detail about it here. If you are interested in getting more information, you can visit the following link, http://tinyurl.com/35umvq.

The other really good thing is that it is a great time to buy now. Also, people looking to sell their home and purchase a more expensive home are in a much better position now than they have been for years.

Amit Bhuta
Real Estate Helper
Kendall Village Homes
(305) 439-3031
www.DadeCountyMLS.com